


we are what we become

by spacenarwhal



Series: second star to the right and straight on [4]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, F/M, Families of Choice, Future Fic, Kid Fic, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Postpartum Depression, Unconventional Families, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2018-10-25 16:44:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10768311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacenarwhal/pseuds/spacenarwhal
Summary: Cassian's hands feel clumsy and overly large supporting her, her head small where his palm curves under her skull, over the soft green cap that covers it.  It’s impossible not to feel as though he’ll break her.She’s so small; he can’t make sense of it. For as big as Jyn got, the baby is somehow a miniscule thing, her limbs thin and her fingers tiny, her ribcage so distinctly fragile against his chest when he holds her. How can he not break her, his hands have done so much worse.





	1. i knew it once, but i forgot

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends! I started working on this pretty much immediately after finishing 'and rest a while for the many' and it was just not the happy babysitting fic i imagined it being. So I've been working on it off an on for a while since, as thesis-writing and anxious flailing allow.
> 
> So there's some talk of mental health issues and some unreliable narrators, but generally this story is very much in keeping with the rest in the series. It's about people taking care of each other as best they can.

He paces the cargo hold, left to right, right to left, walks the perimeter of it after the first few laps prove not nearly long enough. The corridor is longer but brings him too close to their quarters. The baby’s crying echoes so loudly off the bulkhead, it makes the corridor a poor choice for this fruitless pacing. In his arms the baby (Auren, Cassian reminds himself, looking down at the squirming, unhappy infant wailing in his arms) continues to cry.

His hands feel clumsy and overly large supporting her, her head small where his palm curves under her skull, over the soft green cap that covers it. (Bodhi holds the bundle out before him, carefully wrapped and lumpy to the touch. “It, uh, wouldn’t have been much of a wedding present, so this worked out nicely.” Bodhi jokes with a funny grin, dead on his feet after hours of flying followed by hours of waiting. Cassian is a little surprised when Bodhi pulls him into a hug after passing off the gift, but his face cracks into a disbelieving smile, still somewhat dazed—a daughter, a daughter, they have a daughter—and he tightens his own arms around Bodhi, still trying to contain the riot of emotion beating itself senseless behind his ribs). 

Auren whines, a thin, shrill sound like a warning siren, works one of her arms loose from the blanket he wrapped her in. A midwife showed them how to swaddle her properly but no matter how much he checked he couldn’t fight off the feeling that he’d crush her if he wrapped her any tighter.

It’s impossible not to feel as though he’ll break her. 

She’s so small; he can’t make sense of it. For as big as Jyn got, Auren is somehow a miniscule thing, her limbs thin and her fingers tiny, her ribcage so distinctly fragile against his chest when he holds her. How can he not break her, his hands have done so much worse. 

Auren hiccups, gasping in another wet breath, gets her other arm free, her hands clenched into tense fists, curling into herself and kicking against the blanket, contorting so suddenly that he’s half-terrified she’ll fall right out of his hold. His grip tightens instinctively and Auren lets out another shriek (every time he thinks she can’t possibly wail any louder she sucks an even deeper breath into her days’ old lungs and proves him wrong). 

Panic squeezes inside his chest, quickens his steps as he completes another lap. His footsteps echo dully off the steel plating. “I’m sorry.” Cassian says, repositioning his arms like the midwife showed him, willing his muscles to unlock while his heart races. “I’m sorry.” Cassian doesn’t know what exactly he’s apologizing—everything, all of this, this cold grey ship and Jyn’s weariness and his ineptitude—but it doesn’t seem to mean anything to her. Her screams carry on over him. 

Every fear he fought to press back for the last seven months breaks free as he tries to wrangle her limbs back into the blanket. The calm he’s so carefully cultivated over the years—on missions and in firefights and alone in the cockpit of a ship with only Kay to witness his despair—threatens to buckle under the wave of worry that crashes over him. His limbs seize with cold fear. He doesn’t know what to do. 

He’s changed her diaper. She won’t take the bottle he prepared for her any better than she’ll nurse from Jyn when she tries. She must be hungry, Cassian thinks, panic spearing his stomach. He’s letting her starve in his arms as he paces. 

“Please.” He whispers, ashamed of how desperate he sounds. He glances at the open doorway, the dim corridor beyond it, imagines Jyn lying on their bunk. She must still be able to hear them even from here, as far removed as they can be without leaving the ship altogether, walking circuits around the cargo hold. With the metal acting as an amplifier to every whimper and sob, there’s no way Jyn can’t hear them. No way she doesn’t know Cassian can’t get Auren to stop crying. No way she hasn’t already figured out that Cassian doesn’t know what to do.

Cassian’s supposed to be helping. He’s supposed to be a father. It should be something, as instinctual as survival, as the savage-toothed need to avenge the fallen, some part of him that knows how to _fix_ this. But Auren will not stop crying her body-racking sobs and Jyn lies still and quiet and furious in their bed (angry at herself and at Cassian and maybe, though Cassian will never say it out loud, at Auren too. He slips the thought away, a secret he understands too intimately to ever acknowledge) and Cassian doesn’t know how to start making this better. 

(The first time Cassian sees Auren—red and covered in blood thick as grease, her limbs curled in tight and her chest heaving in her first breaths, certainty and fear one in the same inside his gut—he thinks of all the terrible things people are capable of doing in the name of love.)

There’s a bang on the sealed cargo bay ramp, it reverberates out into every single corner of the hold. Auren’s face scrunches, flushed red—fear, Cassian sees fear in her face and it feels like failure—and there’s another knock, softer. There’s the familiar mechanical beep of the access codes being entered and old instinct rears its head even as he realizes there’s no way to reach for anything else with Auren in his arms. He doesn’t have many options but to fall back, takes cover behind a too short stack of crates and stare at the entry way and wait for someone to appear. He cradles Auren closer, offers her what protection he can before he remembers that the only other people on this planet with those access codes pose no threat.

“She doesn’t sound happy, Captain.” Chirrut says lightly and without judgement, stepping onto the ship, surefooted and calm. Baze follows after him, eyes scanning the hold, “You can hear her from the porter’s gate.” He says gruffly, and even if it isn’t a barb aimed at Cassian it still makes his throat seize. He forces his face to remain passive, “No, she isn’t happy at all.”

Chirrut’s hand finds his elbow effortlessly, and something in Cassian’s back bends, relaxes a fraction and alleviates some of the pinching pain along his spine. It’s an effect Cassian spent years resisting, the uncanny calm Chirrut can project into a space, so at odds with the fury and movement Cassian knows he contains inside his body. At his back Baze lingers close, looks over Chirrut’s shoulder and down at Auren, fidgeting in Cassian’s arms. It makes something defensive twist in his stomach.

Chirrut makes a shushing noise, like wind whistling through reeds, and Cassian thinks its meant for Auren but it could just as easily be meant for Baze and him. Chirrut’s never been one to shy away from telling them to shut up and listen. He thinks that’s why Jyn likes the old guardian so much. Chirrut rests his free hand over Auren’s stomach lightly. “Oh,” he says, eyes creasing at the corners as his fingers trace the loose edges of the blanket. “I think I can help.” He motions for Cassian to pass Auren over, and he does, arms tired and tense, aching at the elbow and along his forearms. Somehow he’s still reluctant to let her go. Chirrut shushes her again, cradles her with one hand beneath her head and the other supporting her body as though he’s been doing it for years. Cassian envies his ease, wonders if the Force told him how to do it. Not for the first time he glances between Baze and Chirrut and wonders what the years before they all met held for them. They’ve never spoken of children, but Jedha wasn’t any different from any war torn planet before it, it must have had its share of orphans. He doesn’t have a hard time imagining them taking any number of them into their care. They certainly adopted Jyn and Bodhi quickly enough after Eadu. Their loyalty was always to each other first, the Rebellion secondary to their desire to remain together for as long as they could after Scarif. For a long time the four of them felt like Cassian’s to protect, but not necessarily his to be a part of.

“I think she needs a change of scenery. The kitchen should do. Will you lead the way?” Chirrut asks. In his hold Auren continues to whimper and fuss, and the worry in Cassian’s chest intensifies. Chirrut rolls his eyes, a touch impatient when he says, “You’ve seen me take down squadrons single-handedly, won’t you trust me now, Captain?” Heat creeps up his neck, and he catches Baze’s eye, the sliver of a smirk he throws Cassian’s way. Cassian shakes his head, tired and apologetic, runs a hand through his hair. “Sorry.” he mumbles, ushering them both towards the walkway that leads back to the Snowbird’s galley. It isn’t a lack of trust in Chirrut that makes him glance back numerous times during the short walk, but fear is a hard master to ignore. 

The galley isn’t much, a miniscule cook top, a few narrow counters, a bench welded to the wall, its upholstery an ugly shade of orange, worn thin and patchwork. It must have been added by one of the ship’s previous owners, out of place and too big for the room itself. “The bench.” Baze says gruffly once they’re all crowded in the room, walks Chirrut over to it. “This will do.” Chirrut agrees, sitting and placing Auren on the bench besides him. “Though I do believe its time you two looked into better furnishing.”

Cassian scowls, wipes at his face to try and obscure it from view. The irritation he feels isn’t due to the company, even tired and skittish as he is he can recognize that. But the last thing he needs right now is a reminder of something else he’s failed to do (they’ve been meaning to do something with the space for months now but neither of them really knew just what it is they’re after. Barracks and soldiers’ don’t lend themselves to a lot of personalization. Making the ship ready for an infant proved even more confounding a task. It’s something they still have to figure out). “We’re working on it.” He says tersely, and it isn’t even entirely a lie. Chirrut hums under his breath like he disagrees with Cassian’s personal assessment of the situation, bending over Auren on the bench and carefully unwrapping the blanket she’s mostly wrangled free from. At his back Baze pushes further into the room, bypasses them both and makes his way to the cook top. 

Cassian barely turns to see what Baze is doing, eyes fixed on Chirrut’s hands as he smooths the blanket out beneath Auren with one hand. “She doesn’t like being restrained like that.” Cassian says, feeling stupid, watching her cry as Chirrut begins adjusting the blanket, pulling the corners tight so that her arms are secured against her sides again. “It might be too tight.”

Chirrut shakes his head calmly, “No, she’s alright. See.” He picks her up again, tilting her slightly so that he’s holding her almost on her side. Chirrut makes another shushing sound, lower, longer, and by some miracle Auren’s wails grow softer too, shorter, and then stop altogether. Cassian can feel the twitch of his eyebrows rising. “How did you—?” 

“The world is new to her still. It is big and very loud.” Chirrut says, cadence still soothing and slow, “Can you imagine?” Cassian frowns. He thinks of the ringing his ears after detonating a grenade or waking in countless medbays, drugged and disorientated and afraid. Churrit’s mouth turns downward, as though he can read the unhappiness in Cassian’s thoughts. “She just needs a little extra comfort, Captain, but she’ll be alright.” 

“She’s not eating.” Cassian counters, discomfited that Chirrut can so easily comfort her when he hasn’t been able to for what feels like days.

Chirrut rocks her gently, “She’s not hungry at the moment, if that’s what your worried about. You on the other hand.” Cassian opens his mouth to argue, but his stomach growls, loud enough that Chirrut can probably hear it, judging by the grin on his face. “Sit down Cassian.” Baze calls out to him, almost too loud now that Auren’s crying has stopped. 

Chirrut nods encouragingly. “You’ll feel better after you’ve had some food.” He says but Cassian doesn’t see how a single meal can improve any of this. 

“Jyn—” He starts, half-turning towards the doorway, the hallway beyond it.

The thought of her alone in their room sits uneasy in his belly. Kay is with her at least, he tells himself, shrugs off the sting of not being asked to stay himself. “I’m just— _tired_.” Jyn said, her jaw clenched tight as though it cost her to admit as much. Auren cried harder and Jyn’s face was a brittle thing, at odds with the shrug she threw his way when she promised she was fine.

Chirrut tilts his head towards Baze again. It’s hard to say whether Baze’s response is due to the gesture or comes of his own volition, but they’ve always had that way about them, as though they can read each other’s meaning in the air without uttering a word. Two parts of the same whole working perfectly in sync. Cassian wonders if it’s something they’ve honed with age or some extension of the Force he can’t hope to attain no matter how long he and Jyn are together. 

“I’ll take her something,” Baze says in a neutral sort of voice that still leaves no room for disagreement, “You sit.”

Cassian swallows, shoots a glance at Chirrut, at Auren in his arms. Her face, still tear-stained and blotchy, has smoothed with sleep. It shouldn’t matter who managed it so long as she’s not upset anymore. And yet there’s no helping the uselessness that swells in his throat, no matter how selfish. Churrit’s frown deepens, cradles Auren in one arm and pushes Cassian towards Baze with a gentle nudge. “Sit down, Cassian.” He says again, voice firm and almost unbearable in its kindness.

Maybe one day the surprise of being cared for will wear itself thin.

Cassian takes a step back, eyes still fixed on Auren, stumbles backwards on to the nearest stool and does as he’s ordered. That’s what he’s always been good at that.

It feels rude to give Baze his back but he can’t quiet bring himself to turn around just yet, as though Auren might disappear as soon he takes his eyes off her. Chirrut starts humming under his breath and Baze continues doing whatever it is he’s doing, working undisturbed as though this is something the two of them do every day. Take care of infants and floundering fathers. Cassian almost laughs at the thought.

There’s a soft and aimless quality to Churrit’s tune, heard on countless other occasions. Today, Cassian wants to ask what it is, who taught it to him, wishes there was some scrap of memory inside him—something comforting, or gentle, something more than the memory of fire, black smoke choking the air—but there’s nothing for him to find. He’s so tired. Cassian lets his eyes drop shut. 

He doesn’t sleep, though he doesn’t doubt his ability to fall asleep sitting upright at the moment, listens to Chirrut’s voice and Baze’s movements. He can still feel the echo of Auren’s cries in his bones. He should get up. He should move. Jyn needs him. The urge to do something prickles just under his skin, at war with the baffling loss of direction. It feels like the aftermath of a mission gone wrong, of their earliest days together, after the rush that came from destroying the Death Star had faded into something less certain, when they were both trying to navigate the new thing between them. 

(“You came back.” She tells him, drunk after one too many cups of the contraband wine the higher ups pretend not to know Wedge brews. Jyn’s voice is a conspirator’s whisper, but her eyes are mirthless as she looks up at him. Her hand is clammy where it sneaks under the hem of his shirt, too warm against the curve of his spine where the longest scar comes to a stop. “Like something out of dream.” There’s no room left between them and they’re too exposed, still standing in the hall just outside her quarters. They need to get inside before someone sees them. Jyn will never forgive him if someone else hears what she’s saying right now. It’s harder than it should be to get the door open with her hanging off him, small but persistent in her closeness. “I’m no dream.” Cassian says with a grin, too sober for this sort of honesty, tries to usher her into the room where her bed awaits her. Jyn shakes her head, stubborn as always, voice bleeding earnestness when she says, “No, you’re not.”)

He doesn’t know what to do.

”Eat Captain.” Baze says behind him. It feels like a feat to pry his eyes open. Cassian looks at Auren and Chirrut still sitting together on the bench. He rubs at his face again, tries to blink the hot, gritty feeling out from under his eyelids. His body sags against the counter top as soon he’s turned, stares silently at the bowl that’s been set down before him. He’s not entirely sure what he’s looking at, porridge of some kind, steam wafting up off the surface of it. Across from him Baze is still busy, dividing caf into three mugs. “Jyn can’t have caf.” Cassian says slowly, and Baze gives him a look that makes him wish he hadn’t spoken at all. He can’t seem to keep his foot out his mouth today. Kriff, he’s tired.

“Just eat.” He says, sliding a cup towards him, watching Cassian until he lifts his spoon to his mouth. It scalds the roof of his mouth, the pain helps clear some of the fog from his head. Baze stares at him unapologetically until he’s apparently satisfied with whatever he sees, turning back to the cook top and collecting another bowl of food. For Jyn. 

“Thank you.” Cassian mutters, hunching forward on his elbows, eyes fixed on his food. Chirrut’s humming softens to silence and Baze pauses at Cassian’s elbow. The clap to his shoulder catches him off guard, almost knocks him from his seat. But then his hand is gone and he continues his retreat. Chirrut’s humming picks up again, sparing Cassian from any further words. 


	2. things could be stranger but i don't know how

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All their years together but Jyn’s never felt as though Cassian looked at her as though she was someone to be scared of and scared for all at once.

She doesn’t remember falling asleep but she must have, slogging her way back to consciousness slowly, lumbering back to full wakefulness only to feel her still-wet hair clinging to the side of her face when she rolls onto her back.

“Come on little sister,” Baze is whispering beside her, sitting at the edge of the bed. “Wake up. It’s time to eat.” He doesn’t touch her, hasn’t tired shaking her awake since the first time when Jyn startled awake and accidently punched him in the face. (He brushed her apologizes off with a wry grin, “Do you think Chirrut will be impressed?” He joked gruffly, and Jyn had bitten her mouth thin, knuckles aching where they’d glanced off his jaw.)

It hurts to sit up. Jyn’s body aches with every move, muscles knotted all along her back, her thighs, even breathing seems to set off the dull throb deep inside her. Jyn is no stranger to pain, hasn’t been for a long, long time, but this merciless cramping makes her want to scream some days, makes her want to curl into herself and never move again. The midwife said it would lessen with time, that her body would heal itself after giving birth. Better stocked clinics on more affluent planets might have bacta to spare for this type of thing but the war isn’t so far behind them here on Takodana for it be an option. Jyn knows in the logical part of her mind that has learned from experience that pain doesn’t kill, that her body has survived worse than this with little to no chance to rest. She wishes knowing that was enough to quiet the finicky unrest that’s taken root inside her. But it isn’t.

Baze sets the lights to their dimmest setting, but Jyn still squints, momentarily overwhelmed as she struggles to dispel the heaviness in her head, the tiredness that weighs down her every limb.

It’s hard to know how long she’s slept, their windowless quarters give no indication of time passing. She shoved their chrono into a nearby drawer after Jyn got tired of watching it mark time in the dark. She should probably dig it out. 

Baze is here which means she might have slept through the night onto the next morning but her wet hair tells her it can’t have been nearly as long. Her wet hair and the fact that neither she nor Cassian have slept through a night in weeks. 

So, early evening then. 

In the corner of the room, just outside the weak light cast by the bulb overhead, Kay-Tu’s optical sensors glow dimly, a miraculously silent observer. Something itches across the flat of her tongue at the sight of him. Irritation and shame have the same bitter taste to them, it’s hard to tell the two apart. He hasn’t made any attempt to engage her in conversation, she would think he’s powered down if not for the unblinking white glow peering back at her. She wonders if his silence is on Cassian’s orders. Jyn can’t fathom Kay-Tu withholding his opinions of this situation—of _her_ —out of any kind of sympathy.

She wonders if he reports to Cassian. It’s so easy to imagine the two of them discussing her shortcomings.

The thought makes her stomach clench like a tightening fist, the sharp edge of paranoia digs in deep and twists. The harder Jyn struggles against it, the more damage it seems to cause.

There’s so much worry in Cassian’s eyes whenever he leaves her, the likes of which Jyn can’t remember from before, not on Hoth or Jaresh or Akiva. Wariness clings to him now in a way Jyn’s hasn’t seen before, not even on the shuttle that carried them away from Scarif, its bulkhead shaking as though it would tear itself apart, surrounded by wounded, dying, and dead men, when she could have just as easily wrapped her hand around his throat as a mercy as she might cradle his head in her lap and tell him it would be alright. All their years together but she’s never felt as though he looked at her as though she was someone to be scared of and scared for all at once. 

These days Cassian looks at her and there’s so much in his glance that she doesn’t know by name. Some parts Jyn wishes she knew how to sooth and others that make her grit her teeth to hold back the barbs that rise in her throat. 

The first time she allowed Kay-Tu to remain was an attempt at easing some of the weight Cassian’s taken to carrying since they’ve returned to their ship. It had helped, she thought, made it easier for Cassian to walk out the door with their daughter in his arms, to know Kay-Tu was with her. Kay-Tu an old ally Cassian has long trusted to keep Jyn safe in his absence. From what, Jyn wonders from under the suffocating net of fear that seems to fall down around her when she least needs it, what does he think she needs protecting from here. There’s nothing here, no threat at all, they’re _safe_ , they’re _fine_ , they are—

“Auren?” Her voice tightens around the name, and Baze makes a soft understanding noise in acknowledgement, sets a bowl in her empty hands. “Sleeping.” He tells her. His voice isn’t quite a whisper but it is quieter than usual, better suited for the half-light of this windowless room. “Chirrut’s with her.” 

Jyn nods, looks down at the bowl in her hands, braces her fingers against the sides of it. Noodles today, heavily spiced as Baze’s cooking tends to be. Better than the nutrient paste the medics sent her home with, not that she has much of an appetite. Jyn blinks, her eyelids feel swollen and hot, her skin tacky with leftover moisture. She swallows. “And Cassian?” 

“Showering I hope.” Baze tells her with a rasp of a snort, still quiet. Still careful. Jyn breathes in deeply, her shoulders shake. It feels like something wants to tear itself loose from inside her and Jyn forces it down with all the hard-headed determination that has guided her through worse than this—there’s nothing wrong, she reminds herself, there’s nothing wrong here, they’re safe—and Baze’s hand settles gently on her back, a bright spot of warmth splayed against her spine where it curves forward. Her eyes burn. Jyn tears her eyes away from the bowl in her hands, wants to reassure Baze like she wishes she could reassure Cassian, hopes it’ll help pry loose whatever it is gnawing on her bones. 

“That’s good. He needed it.” Jyn says with a hiccupping laugh that shivers on her lips before she can force it steady. Baze’s mouth twitches unhappily. Jyn scowls, dashes any attempts at reassurance to pieces even as she snaps, “I’m fine. I’m just tired. I hear it happens with a newborn. ”

Baze doesn’t argue. He gives her that much at least. Jyn shovels noodles into her mouth, slurps messily, nose flooding and eyes stinging. Kriff. It hurts to swallow. 

Baze’s hand drops from her back, and Jyn breathes easier for it, ignores the thin needles of loss that dig along her back. Crowded. Lonely. There’s no pleasing her it seems. She stabs at her food forcefully.

They’re safe. She’s _fine_. 

She never asked Baze to stay either, but he and Chirrut keep coming back, like Kay-Tu. Like Cassian. Some days it’s easier to bear, like long afternoons spent side by side in the armory, or in the firing range, or sitting on the outskirts of a sparring ring watching Chirrut knock Luke Skywalker off his feet. Other days it feels like another weight, like that too brittle silence that hung between them in the infirmary on Yavin 4, Chirrut floating in bacta and Bodhi swaddled in bandages and Cassian taken away by surgeons and droids. Nothing for them to do but wait together. (It feels like waiting now, and Jyn doesn’t know how that’s possible. The war is over and the baby is born, what is there to wait for now? What is the use of this fear she can’t scrape off her insides, this undefined dread that seems intent on smothering her slowly. They’re fine. They’re _safe_.)

“Chirrut’s good with her.” Jyn forces out, wiping roughly at her mouth with the back of her hand. She’d kill for a strong cup of caf. Or better yet, a stiff drink. She could do with a long deep sleep and for this aimless dread sitting heavy in the pit of her stomach to disappear. She wants Cassian to look at her and know that he sees her and not whatever it is plaguing him with worry.

Baze nods, leaning back against the bulkhead. “He is. But please, don’t tell him I said so, it’ll go straight to his head.” 

“Don’t worry, you’re secret is safe with me. But I can’t speak for him.” She juts her chin towards Kay-Tu. 

Kay-Tu whirrs, optical sensors flaring brighter for a quick second. “I am a security droid, Jyn Erso, discretion is part of my code.” 

(“Is he programmed to keep your secrets then?” Jyn asks curiously, watching Cassian perform routine maintenance on the powered down droid. She thinks of asking Cassian if he really has to power K-2SO back up again, wants to see if she can tease a grin out of hiding by picking up the loose thread of easy conversation they’re working on expanding between them, but Cassian’s mouth goes oddly flat, his eyes fixed on whatever it is he’s doing inside Kay-Tu’s chassis. “No, he’s decided to do that on his own.” It isn’t a confession because Jyn knows Cassian is riddled with secrets, and she’s not foolish enough to think she’ll ever learn them all. She turns her eyes to Kay’s grey metal face and wonders, not for the first or last time, if sharing his past with a droid has made it easier for Cassian to carry. She hopes it has.)

At her side Baze chuckles good-naturedly. “I forgot how funny that droid of yours is.” 

It isn’t hard to grin at that, even if it feels stiff on her face. “That’s one way of putting it.” 

Kay-Tu drones in his corner, a mechanical contemplative sound that’s become as familiar to Jyn as the sound of blaster fire or a ship engine buzzing before leaping into hyperspace. He doesn’t usually engage her or Baze in conversation during these visits but Jyn’s hardly made an effort to initiate one with either of them. She’s never had much to say.

“Cassian would probably be happy if Chirrut never left.” She says, tilting the bowl in her hands back and forth, watching the broth slip back and forth, almost touching the rim of the bowl and then receding to the opposite side.

Baze chuckles, head thudding gently against the wall, “You think that now but Chirrut Imwe requires a great deal of personal fortitude. I have been building mine for nearly fifty years now and you’ve seen what good it does me. No offense little sister, but your husband couldn’t hack it.” 

Jyn grits her teeth, jaw twitches with the force of it. “He isn’t my husband. Remember?” There hasn’t been time, not even to file the required paperwork, since Auren was born.

Baze waves an unconcerned hand. “As good as.” As good as. A month ago Jyn would have agreed without hesitation, but now there’s a sense of uncertainty to it that wakes her in the middle of night at random. 

They’re together. They’re safe. They’re fine. So why can’t she get free from this. There’s so much Jyn is meant to do now but she can’t find the will to do it, rooted in place by a kind of apathy that reminds her too much of the shell she was before, beaten down by a lifetime of loneliness and fear. It doesn’t belong, not here, not now, and Jyn can’t do anything but hate herself for it. 

Jyn tips the bowl too far, spills broth down one side and on to the blanket. “He’s good with Auren, don’t you think?” 

Baze shifts beside her, leans forward again. “He is.”

Jyn nods. The dread inside her goes from leaden and heavy to something effervescent, bubbling and popping inside her bloodstream. Jyn remembers Auren’s soft face turning against her breast, searching for something Jyn hasn’t been able to give her, her unhappy whimpering that evolved into full-fledge wailing within a matter of seconds in Jyn’s arms. She remembers Cassian’s face, mouth pinched with unvoiced questions. She thinks, of all things, of her mother’s arms wrapped around her and the wet loam smell that clings to all of Jyn’s memories of Lah’mu. Her head hurts almost as badly as her throat. Jyn’s mouth opens and closes around words she doesn’t say. Baze keeps quiet, his stillness grounding and unnerving all at once. 

Baze’s takes the bowl from her hands, Jyn curls her fingers inward, holds nothing. His palm is hot when he reaches for one of her fists, skin rough and dry, the scars on the back of his hand come in and out of focus as Jyn blinks and blinks and blinks. 

“What are you afraid of, little sister?” Baze asks her, and Jyn rubs at her eyes with her free hand, wipes snot off on her wrist. Her shrug is a quick jagged jerk, like pulling a blade free after plunging it into a target.

She’s turned the question over and over, looked at it in every possible way and come away without any kind of answer that makes sense. The things she fears most are vast and so far out of her control she feels she’s going mad, sitting here, thoughts tangled around themselves, sick with trepidation. She holds her daughter and thinks of every way she can lose her, comes awake searching for the whisper of her breathing in the dark, spreads her hand out against her chest just to feel it rise and fall, rise and fall. But when it comes time to take care of her she can’t bring herself to move. 

(Cassian’s heart drums under her palm and Jyn closes her free hand around the kyber crystal hanging from her open shirt, adrenaline and fear the only things keeping her from collapsing on the shuttle floor beside him, and wills his heart to keep beating). 

Jyn thinks of Cassian and Auren and of everything she’s ever survived, heartache and loss, Saw’s battles and the Rebellion’s war, the man in white and fire eating the skyline of Jedha, the blazing ocean on Scarif, the Death Star blown to dust not once but twice. Jyn thinks of her family and knows there would be no surviving them. Their loss. Their disappointment. 

“I can’t—”

It feels inevitable to her now in a way that few things ever have, the crushing weight of that single certainty grinding all her hopes beneath its heel. She’ll lose them. Cassian, their daughter, even Chirrut and Baze who owe them nothing but who come to their aid time and time again. She’ll find a way to lose them. 

She sucks in a horrible noise, it sticks in her chest. She feels as though she’s choking. Baze’s fingers tighten around her fist. “That’s alright.” He says, “That’s alright.” She wants to shake her head. _No_. Jyn wants to tell him she doesn’t need this from him, this kindness he seeks to wrap around her like an embrace. This isn’t the kind of protection Jyn needs from herself, it won’t keep her family safe.

(But they are safe. They’re safe here. They’re fine. She counts breaths but the numbers slip meaninglessly through her thoughts.)

Baze’s hand shifts, his body solid when he pulls her to him with a steadying arm around her hunched shoulders. Jyn doesn’t fight it, turns her face into the coarse fabric of his shoulder and breathes, tries to remind herself to breathe just as her mother taught her, even and measured, to will the fear away. (“You must be brave now, Jyn. Can you be my brave girl?”)

But it’s like trying to bale water out of a sinking boat with only her cupped hands. Exhausting in all its futility. Baze’s shirt grows damp under her cheek but he doesn’t complain. It makes Jyn cry harder.

Kay’s footsteps echo with a metallic clang as he leaves without excusing himself and Jyn shoves her knuckles against her lips, muffles the pathetic wheezing sound she can’t seem to hold in. She can’t be a mother like this, she won’t be the dark cloud that hangs over her daughter’s life. 

It isn’t Kay-Tu that comes back.

Baze doesn’t let her go. It’s a tight squeeze but Cassian manages it, wedges himself into the space between Jyn and the bulkhead at her back, arm coming around her carefully, taking her weight until she’s leaning on him instead. Baze’s fingers tighten one last time around her forearm before he goes. Jyn covers her eyes and doesn’t watch him leave. 

Cassian’s frame is slight compared to Baze’s but his grip isn’t any less firm, his arms locked around her like he’s afraid she’ll disappear if he loosens his grip even a fragment. It isn’t the first time he’s seen her cry, but the shame Jyn feels now is new, and she curls as far into herself as she can in this position, leaning against him with his arms around her shoulders, her knees raised beneath the rumpled blankets. “Jyn,” he whispers, sounds as lost as she feels, “Jyn.” 

“I’m sorry,” she gnashes the words between her teeth, “I can’t—”

They’re fine. They’re safe. They’re here. She tries to hold on to the truth of those words and keep them close but they scare like wild tauntauns. 

“You don’t have to.” Cassian answers, and Jyn would laugh if she had it in her, because he’s taking a shot in the dark, doesn’t know any better than Jyn does what she’s trying to say. She can’t do this. She can’t lose them. She can’t feed Auren. She can’t take care of her. She can’t turn off this incessant fear. She can’t. She can’t. She can’t.

His breath tickles over the nape of her neck. His hair is damp and cold where it brushes against her jaw when he leans closer. For a long while all they do is breath together, quiet in the near dark. 

Jyn scrubs her face with her sleeve, Cassian hands her a corner of the sheet to blow her nose on. Tiredness weighs heavier on her than even before. Jyn sags against him, thinks of Wobani, horrible and cold, what it felt like to go to sleep exhausted and half-starved every single day knowing tomorrow would be no different. She doesn’t know what it says about her that her memories of an imperial labor camp seem comparable to this, to now, living in peace and raising a child with a man she trusts with her life. 

He’s tense against her back, a rigid line of bone and skin. She covers one of his hands with her own, and his fingers slot between hers. Jyn wonders if his hand still aches weeks after she squeezed it with every ounce of strength the Force afforded her during labor. 

(“You’re doing the hard part.” He jokes feebly, smoothing hair back from her face as her last contraction tapers off, her fingers loosening around his without letting go, “This is the least I can do.” Jyn wants to retort that he’s already done the least he could do nine months prior and that part had at least been enjoyable for both of them, but she can already feel the next contraction starting to pull from deep inside her. Cassian grips her hand as fiercely as she holds his.)

The room looks emptier without Kay lurking in the shadows. She draws a deep rattling breath through her clogged nose. Cassian matches her, his chest rises and falls against her back, his thumb presses against the peak of her knuckle where their fingers lay twisted together over her shoulder. “I don’t know what to do.” Cassian says softly, and all of Jyn’s insides turn to ice, to sleet, colder than Hoth, as terrible as the storm that beat down on her on Eadu the night her father died.

“Cassian—”

“You’re not alright. I know you’re not but I don’t—I don’t know how to help you. And asking you to tell me doesn’t seem fair.”

Jyn bites her lip, her stomach turns. “You’re not responsible for me.” She says, though that doesn’t seem fair either. “I don’t—I don’t even know what’s wrong with me. How can you?” 

Cassian presses his face against the side of her neck and Jyn doesn’t say anything about the shuddering breath he exhales, the warmth of his face against her skin. “Maybe responsible isn’t the word for it. What we do—we take care of each other, don’t we?” 

“Baze asked what I was afraid of.” Jyn says, looking at his hands, at her own, at the bedding, anywhere but at his face. “And the truth is I don’t know. Everything maybe. I’m—I feel as though I’m not myself. Like I’m someone else, someone who can’t make herself do what she needs to do—I’m here but I’m not—I’m not doing anything.” Her voice cracks, and she hates it, hates herself, hates how fragile she feels talking to him. Cassian has been a source of strength to her almost as long as she’s known him. It isn’t fair to be wary of him now. She trusts him. She loves him. It isn’t right to feel as though he’s something unreachable, something she’s already lost. “I need to be her mother but I don’t even know how—I’m terrible—” She cuts herself off with an impatient snarl, wipes at her face again feeling useless. “And I know you’re worried but you shouldn’t be, not about me, I just need to get my head together—” She needs to know he’ll put their daughter first.

“Jyn.” His voice is ruined, urgent in its disapproval and it makes Jyn preemptively defensive, her back pulling straight. Cassian frowns, his dark eyes searching for hers and she knows to drop her gaze now would only cripple her pride further. “Jyn I’m more than capable of worrying about both of you.” He sounds so genuinely offended that she would suggest otherwise that Jyn almost feels sorry for it. But Cassian’s always been the kind to stretch himself thin. “But if you’re afraid than you need to know I am too. I’m terrible too.” He carries on right over her protests, “And you’re right. Auren does need a mother,” his hands aren’t strictly gentle when they cup her face but Jyn doesn’t pull away, allows him to wipe at her damp cheeks, “but you need something too.”

“What? What do I need?” She asks, so many feelings at war inside her—annoyance and sadness and fear, that damning fear—she wishes could hollow herself out once and for all. She would it if it meant she could be the mother her daughter deserves. 

(She is born screaming and small and perfect, perfect, her face red and contorted and her eyes clenched shut like she knew already knew all the worse the world had to offer her and Jyn swears to herself that none of it will ever touch her so long as she breathes.)

Cassian presses his brow against her, like he can’t stand to look at her any longer, or maybe he can’t bear to look her in the eye when he says, “I don’t know. We—we’ll have to figure that out. But we will. We will.” He says it with such conviction that Jyn wants nothing more than to believe him. It should be so easy as sitting with him on their bed and telling him she’s afraid, as telling herself there’s nothing to fear here. They’re safe. They’re fine. And yet. 

She presses her lips together, barely nods, bumps her forehead against his to let him know she hears him. 

Jyn breathes in deep. Counts to three. Exhales. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have written and rewritten and rewritten this chapter so many times and I am honestly still not completely sold on it. Anyone want to talk about mental health services in Star Wars? I'm here for it!


	3. i'm going through changes now

They fall into a new pattern without discussion or fanfare. 

They are careful at first, mindful not to impose where they’re not wanted. “They need us.” Chirrut said from the first, stubborn as ever as though Baze would ever consider disagreeing, not even for the sake of being contrary, had only responded with, “That won’t make it easy.” Neither Cassian or Jyn have ever taken kindly to even the suggestion of charity. 

In the beginning Chirrut delights in making up flimsy stories to explain their frequent visits or why Baze almost always arrives with food in hand. It speaks to Cassian’s exhaustion in those early days that he does not question either of them, though Baze knows there are holes in some of Chirrut’s more whimsical excuses that an star destroyer could fly through. 

“A cup of sugar?” Baze asks incredulously as they make their way home from the shipyard, “Really? They barely have food onboard as it is.” 

Chirrut’ shrugs, knocks his shoulder against Baze’s arm as they walk. “It worked didn’t it?” His grin is still as beguiling as it was when they were children getting into trouble with their elders. Baze shakes his head, tries to shrug off the worry collected like stones on his shoulders when he thinks of Cassian and Jyn and their daughter. He knows Chirrut feels it too. “You could have said we were in search of a missing rancor and he would have let us in.”

“Perhaps.” Chirrut says lightly, catching Baze’s hand in his own. “I can try that tomorrow.” His fingers squeeze reassuringly before letting go.

By the time Auren six weeks old there isn’t much need for excuses. Cassian is less visibly unsettled with Auren in his arms and quicker to trust Chirrut to watch after her. The tightness in his face doesn't dissipate as quickly, too alike to the wariness Baze recognizes from a lifetime of warfare. Chirrut says the Force moves cautiously around Cassian these days, breaks around him like the waves of an uneasy sea beat against the shore. (“Sometimes the prisons we know are easier to bear than the unknown terrain without.” Chirrut says, stretched out in the sun-dappled grass beneath the gnarl-branched tree that shadows the front of their home. Baze hums, picks at the bark of a nearby root. He almost reminds Chirrut that they hadn’t fared much better, after the Empire came to Jedha. How long had it taken them to remake their lives, how close had they come to losing one another in the chaos of an unraveled destiny. To this day the closest thing he knows to a miracle is that they didn’t.) 

Today Baze studies Cassian from the opposite side of the counter, watches him blink blearily at the cup of caf before him. He’s been nodding off almost from the moment he allowed himself to sit, quiet since his half-yawned explanation that Auren slept poorly the night before. Cassian’s shirt is spotted with dried crusted _something_ , his dark hair starting to go lank behind his ears, growing longer than Baze has ever seen it go before. Even his beard has taken on a distinctly grizzly quality to it. 

It’s been nearly four days since they last visited and Baze sees every one of those days in Cassian’s face. 

Baze has seen the man look more alert on less sleep in the middle of active warzones yet here in what is supposed to be his own home he looks looks fit to fall to the floor. The wonders of parenthood.

“You smell like a wet Wookie.” Baze says blandly, mug of lukewarm caf cradled between his own palms. He does not need Chirrut’s intuition or the Force to figure out the odds Andor hasn’t showered since their last visit. 

Cassian twitches, not offended so much as he is startled. He glances up at Baze and then back down at his own untouched cup as though he’s forgotten either were even there. It takes him a moment to scowl in response. “Anything else you’d like to tell me?”

Churrit laughs from his seat at the ugly bench, one hand still gently rocking the basket where Auren sleeps. “I’ve heard you could use a shave as well.”

Cassian rolls his eyes, picking up his mug of caf and taking a long gulp of it. He makes a face as he puts it down, rubs a hand at his untidy jawline. “I would think you two had better things to discuss than me.”

Chirrut tsks, “When you’ve been together as long as we have Captain you’ll find that subjects of conversation run low.”

Baze rolls his eyes, though he’s gratified by the weak smile Cassian shoots his way. Baze wipes a rag over the counter, more to give himself something to do than because there’s much to clean. The Snowbird isn’t much, the galley small, perfunctory like the rest of the freighter. Still, there are some things that clearly set it apart from a mercenary’s ship, things no one would have thought to keep aboard a Rebellion transport, such as the bottles drying in a rack by the shallow washing basin and the small felt ewok with black button eyes resting on the counter.

(“I have no idea where Han found it.” Jyn says, holding the toy up to Baze to examine, “It’s ridiculous don’t you think.” Her smile is small and bemused but it brightens her tired features, one hand absentmindedly patting the side of her massive belly. It’s hard to believe the last time he saw her she was running towards another briefing, arm in a sling and blaster at her hip, wane and exhausted but itching to return to battle.)

Cassian reaches for the ewok toy, makes it look even smaller in his hand. He squeezes his fingers around it gently, sets it aside and out of the way, eyes softer now even if the weariness is still evident. Baze adverts his eyes. 

Andor and Jyn are private people. Baze understands it, as a means of survival and a basic disinterest in other people’s opinions. It’s what made Cassian’s stumbling, half-stuttered confession that something is wrong all the more concerning, the room crowded with a pronounced air of loss. “ _Jyn_ —the midwife says it happens sometimes afterwards.” Cassian said, face haggard and eyes blank, “I’m not sure—” He bit the words short, mouth an unhappy, thin frown.

That was nearly four weeks ago now. 

Cassian hasn’t said anything more of it and Baze hasn’t asked.

But Baze too clearly remembers the sound of Jyn’s bitten off sobs, the bitterness of her mouth before she pressed her hand against her lips and swore she’d be fine. On Jedha it was not unheard of for a child to be found on the temple steps, or for parents to come to their doors with desperation in their face and children in their arms. Baze has no recollection of his own parents but he remembers them, those men and women who turned to them in search of whatever aid they thought they’d find there. He does not see that same desperation in Jyn or Cassian, can’t imagine either of them relinquishing their daughter now that she is here but there’s no denying the weariness wearing on both of them. Or the fear bottled up inside this ship with them.

He glances back at Cassian from the corner of his eye. Small talk doesn’t come naturally to either of them under the best of circumstances. They know each other well enough now to recognize that in one another. Their ragtag team of strays stuck together after Scarif, Chirrut convinced it was the will of the Force that had brought Jyn to them in NiJedha, that the Rebel’s fight was their fight now that their home was gone. And while Baze had barely known the man who was trapped in the same stone cell as he and Chirrut, Baze had less difficulty trusting Cassian Andor afterward, even while he stood silent and still at Chirrut’s side and listened to Cassian and Jyn hiss furiously at one another on their stolen ship. He was a man determined, loyal to a fault, a man with a cause he believed in above all else, not so unlike the man Baze had promised his life to more than twenty years prior. On Eadu Cassian proved himself a man who would choose his own convictions above an order, who burned with anger and purpose, conflicted though that purpose was. If Baze had chosen to trust Jyn before everything else that unfolded because Chirrut placed his faith in her, than perhaps Chirrut trusted Cassian because Baze did not distrust him despite all the reasons there were for greater caution. All these years later Baze’s original reading of him has proven itself true time and again. Cassian’s face is still that of a friend. A brother. 

(“They’re children fighting their elders’ wars.” Chirrut sighs, robes still dripping on the bulkhead. It’s the first anyone has spoken in what feels like hours. Cassian is still upstairs with the pilot and his droid, while Jyn has disappeared into some corner of the shuttle to mourn or rage or plan her revenge. Baze doesn’t know. He won’t begrudge her the privacy. 

That leaves just the two of them together. That much at very least is still true. Baze lets his head fall back against the landing ramp, listens to the faint echo that rings throughout the hold. Behind his eyes his memories are drenched in sunlight, clouded by sandstorms. The Temple is gone, but the Temple has been gone for years now, it doesn’t matter. There was nothing left to guard. The kyber stolen from the earth to line the Empire’s pockets and fuel their war machines. The people, Baze thinks, closing his eyes, their people. Pilgrims and civilians alike, the market vendors and the smugglers, the children who threw rocks at passing tanks from their rooftops. Their people. The Force abandoned Jedha and now Baze has too, with every second he flies further and further away. Chirrut sits heavily beside him. 

“There is always somebody’s war that needs fighting.” Baze answers.

“We will help them.” Chirrut says, the words as firm as his hand gripping Baze’s thigh. “Because the Force wills it?” Baze asks drily, forcing away the tightness in his throat. Chirrut tips his face towards him, wearing the expression of man whose mind is decided. “Because it is what we both want to do.”) 

Baze catches the slight turn of Chirrut’s head over Cassian’s shoulder more than he does the appearance of Jyn in the galley doorway. She stands still for a moment before she crosses the threshold and Baze smiles at her, returns the small nod she sends his way before she reaches Chirrut and Auren. “You got her to sleep.” She says quietly, voice hushed and astonished, dropping to a crouch beside the bench, tentative fingers reaching out to touch the edge of Auren’s basket as though she’s afraid the slightest jiggle might upset the sleeping baby within. 

There’s still a physical softness to her left over from pregnancy, but there’s something else to the sight of her these days. The bitter edge of isolation she wore so deeply when they first met has long since been smoothed away, and even the fear Chirrut has felt wrapped tight around her hasn’t caused it to reform. She was just a girl when he first met her, bruised, bloody, and brave on the streets of Jedha, she’s grown so much since then in ways that have little to do with either time or the child she looks over now. 

Chirrut covers Jyn’s hand with his own on the side of the basket. “You overestimate my abilities my dear. I simply waited for her to cry herself out.” Chirrut gives Jyn a fortifying grin. 

Cassian turns in his seat, looks torn between reaching for Jyn and keeping still. It takes Baze back to the days of their bumbling courtship, when everything between them was so clear and yet so muddled by their own doubts and best intentions. It was enough to make him wonder if he and Chirrut had ever been so young, so uneasy coexisting with what they felt and what they were meant to do. It doesn’t seem possible now, the whole of his life shared with him, Chirrut Imwe a part—the best part—of everything Baze is. A different man would have turned from Baze long ago, when the Empire took everything and killed the faith Baze had once built his life around. A different man would have sought to change his anger into something else before Baze was ready to relinquish it. 

Cassian leans forward in his seat, a compromise of sorts. “The midwife says it’s colic.”

Jyn huffs under her breath. “Which really just means crying for no reason.”

Baze grins, knows Chirrut’s response before he’s even opened his mouth. “Only a reason we do not yet understand.” Baze rolls his eyes ceilingward, Jyn and Cassian seem equally unconvinced. 

Chirrut’s grin widens, evidently proud of himself.

Despite their misgivings Auren does remain asleep. The droid comes to join them, takes over for Chirrut near the bench so that Chirrut and Jyn can join Baze and Cassian at the narrow counter top where they take their meals. It’s too small to comfortably sit four adults, their shoulders brushing and their elbows knocking together every time they lift their utensils to their mouths. No one complains. They’ve shared worse meals in more uncomfortable settings. 

Kouse root mash isn’t the most exciting meal Baze has ever prepared but it beats tarine tea any day. 

Halfway through their meal Chirrut clears his throat. “We have a matter we would like to discuss with you.” He announces with little in the way of tact. Baze steels his face, heart quicken it’s measure against his breastbone with unforeseen nerves. They’ve planned for this of course, have spent the days since the idea first occurred to them talking it over. It was Chirrut who first gave voice to the idea, walking the length and breadth of their home. 

(They hadn’t meant to stay here, not on this green world that was nothing like Jedha, not while there was still a war to be fought elsewhere and Imperials to kill. But they’re not so young as they once were, their nomadic lives not so easy on their bodies or their spirits. Of all the things Baze learned from his years among the Rebel Alliance the lesson he holds closest is this: there are more ways to help than with a blaster. There’s still work to be done but it doesn’t feel as though it’s their work only. In the Spring, Baze has already decided, he will plant qilan seeds and see if they take root in the soil behind their home. Takodana is a growing place, who can say that Baze cannot try to grow a piece of home here.)

Cassian and Jyn exchange glances, weariness shining in both their faces. Chirrut takes a small sip of tea, bumps his knuckles against Baze’s arm before he starts again. “This ship is no place to raise a child.” Baze watches Cassian and Jyn carefully, the stony look that settles over Jyn’s eyes like a weight, the stiffening of her shoulders, the way Cassian’s mouth thins, his brows furrow under the fall of his hair over his brow. Baze clears his own throat. This was so much easier when they practiced by themselves.

“He means—we mean—that we have room.” This wasn’t how they’d planned it at all.

There’s so much quiet following Baze’s words, Chirrut serenely unhelpful while Jyn blinks and Cassian raises a puzzled brow. Baze wishes Auren would wake just to break the silence. 

Chirrut finishes his tea. “It would be a great help to us. My knees are not what they once were and the road this way is long.” He adds with a teasing grin and Baze chuckles, grateful for the humor. “And we have room to spare.” Jyn and Cassian do not look especially convinced, they know there’s a difference between a spare room and room to spare. Still, it’s bigger than anything they’ve had before. And there’s light. Space to walk. 

Jyn looks at a loss for words. Cassian’s mouth moves, almost as though he’s decided to speak before fully knowing what to say. “That’s—” he stutters over the word, “very generous, but we don’t—” he gestures between him and Jyn. “We wouldn’t want to impose. We don’t even know how long we’ll be here. And Auren—”

It wasn’t the way of the Guardians to have families outside the Temple walls. They were meant to give their lives wholeheartedly to the Force, to doing its will, protecting its heart, until death found them one way or another. Even among themselves, Guardians were meant to view one another as parts of a greater work, parts of a whole. To be loved in the same way one loves themselves as a part of the Force, an instrument of its will in the world. 

Chirrut has always argued that the Force gave them to each other, that it meant for them to find one another within the Temple halls, believes they would have found a way to be what they are now even if they had not lost everything else. “We are meant for each other, I think.” Chirrut said once when they were young men still, partnered by their elders. Baze cannot remember the circumstances now, what task they were meant to accomplish together, but those words echo inside him still. Baze does not believe in such grand designs but he knows that what he has now is singular, as close to a miracle as he can believe in now. It is his to protect. To nurture. 

“Will be with her family.” Baze says, catching Jyn’s eye.

Chirrut nods, claps his hand on Baze’s knee. Jyn finds her voice, color rising in her face, eyes bright. “I don’t—we—”

“Just for a time. Until you’re ready. Or grow tired of two old men meddling in your business.” Chirrut adds gently. 

“He will be doing the meddling.” Baze interjects, still working to lessen the apprehension in the room. He takes a deep breath. “It’ll be close quarters, but we will fit. If you come.” _If you want to come._

Jyn takes a deep breath, Cassian shifts, presses his hand to her back. When Jyn speaks the words are choked but there’s a smile lifting the corners of her mouth, alighting her tired features. “It can’t be any worse than K-2’s meddling. Or have you forgotten, he’s got an opinion on everything.”

K-2SO whirrs behind them, “One day you’ll appreciate my help.”

Chirrut barks a short, approving laugh. “Live in hope, old friend.”

Baze gives into the urge to touch the back of Chirrut’s age-weathered hand, to cover the breadth of it with his own rough palm. Chirrut turns towards him, smiles the same wonderous smile he’s shared with Baze for ages and that Baze has never tired of. Even the worst years of their life together could not dim it, Chirrut’s spirit an unflagging flame which has seen them through each and every trial. 

Chirrut laces their fingers together, squeezes tight. 

They have taken care of each other for the greater-share of their lives, and now they will take care of Cassian and Jyn and their daughter. Because it is their duty and their fortune and their choice.

“Thank you.” Cassian says, still seemingly dazed by the offer, and Jyn laughs, a watery disbelieving sound, rests her head against Cassian’s arm and partially muffles the sound. “We won’t overstay our welcome,” Jyn promises when she lifts her face, pink-cheeked but earnest as ever, “And we’ll help. In whatever way we can—”

Chirrut shushes her, “You are coming then?” 

Cassian nods, mouth finally thawing into a small but honest smile. It reminds Baze of a different man, younger and more burdened by other men’s secrets, standing in a busy hangar offering a band of strangers the chance to fight for what they believed in. 

“Good,” Baze says, feels the truth of the word in his bones, “That is good.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Changes" by Langhorne Slim and the Law


End file.
